Homesick
by LondonBelow
Summary: Roger found Mimi's stash. Falling to pieces, Mark calls Collins.
1. Splinters in the Sea

**Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson is the Supreme Creator of RENT and worthy of utmost respect. Characters not mine. Situation not mine. Nothing is mine.**

Mark clutched the receiver tightly, pinning his ear flat with the cold plastic. "Thomas?" he asked. His breath formed clouds against the telephone.

Thomas Collins, wayward philosopher and professor of Does Anyone Care Anymore, would have grinned to hear Mark's voice. It had been less than four months since Christmas, and already homesickness closed in a vice around his heart. Collins had found employment at Columbia University; theoretically, being occupied kept him from thinking about Angel and worrying about the boys in the loft.

As Tom Collins had learned, the greatest theories died as splinters in the sea. "Yeah. What's wrong?"

Mark's voice did not make Collins smile, because Mark's voice was crying. Collins heard Mark gag on spit and bile.

"Roger and I…" Mark began, then shook his head. It was not the two of them. Foolish words rang in his empty heart: _You hungry? I'm starved. Let's go to the Life… You sure? All right, if you're sure. You don't mind if I go, do you, Rog?_ "Roger was going through Mimi's stuff. He found her stash, and--"

Voices blurred together, the students carousing outside and, behind Mark, a stream of voices, some distorted and metallic. Collins' blood ran cold. "He didn't!" After over a year off drugs, the months in which he withdrew and relapsed again and again, after the fevers and nightmares and violence of detoxification, Roger Davis could not return to drugs. It had been so long Collins did not consider the temptation.

"Uh-huh," Mark said.

Against his will, Collins ground his teeth. He pressed his knuckles to his forehead. That little idiot. "I'll kick his ass. Where is he? Put him on." There was a period of silence, long enough for Collins' anger to fade. "Mark," he said, slowly. "Where's Roger?"

"Buh--" Mark coughed, gave a dry gagging noise, and began to sob. He pressed his forehead against the wall, jammed the phone against his ear, and sobbed, hot tears spilling over. His face flushed and his glasses fogged.

"Where are _you_?" Collins asked.

"Saint Luke's," Mark managed. He took a deep gulp of air. His tears slowed and slowly his temperature began to drop. Collins was silent as Mark collected himself. At last satisfied with his state, Mark said, "I'm at Saint Luke's Hospital." He shuddered and broke down again. "Collins…"

Collins nodded. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he promised. "He'll be okay, Mark."

Mark shook his head, his face hot and sticky with tears. "You don't know that," he sobbed. "The doctors don't know that."

"He'll be okay," Collins repeated, stressing every syllable. _At least until I get to him…_


	2. An Addict's An Addict

**Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson is the Supreme Creator of RENT and worthy of utmost respect. Only this silly story is mine--characters, etc. belong to Mr. Larson.**

_"Meems, you'll never guess, I had the strangest dre--" _

_Roger stopped speaking when his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was possible for him to ignore the shape and size of the hand on his shoulder, much larger and squarer than Mimi's. It was possible to ignore that his companion smelled of cheap soap and store-brand toothpaste rather than honey and sweat. But Roger could not ignore the looming image, a spiky-haired, bespectacled blond man. Mark._

_Roger rolled onto his side, facing away from Mark. "Shove off," he murmured._

_"Do you want to talk about it?" Mark asked. Roger said nothing. "Okay. Well, I'll be in my room if you change your mind."_

"I can't decide who I'm angrier with," Mark admitted. He sat in an uncomfortable chair, staring straight ahead. "I can't believe she kept a stash around. I can't believe he…" _I can't believe I,_ he did not say. _I can't believe I let Roger down. Can't believe I let Mimi down._

Mark had known Mimi would die. He had expected it. Christmas Eve was a miracle. It was not Mimi but the magic that faded after it. She never fully recovered. She would sit on the edge of Roger's bed, feet dangling to the floor, with Roger beside her, helping her clumsy hands bring a spoon to her mouth. _Will I lose my…_

If Mimi lost her dignity then, it was not to Roger. It was not to desperate, clinging Roger, who hardly left her side. It was not to his voice, eerie as an echo in the loft as he sang her love songs and lullabies and anything he could think of. It was not to his trembling hands, afraid to release her for a second, touching her shoulders and back and knees and hands, never going farther than she allowed. It was not to his gullibility, believing when she said she was well again, well enough, that last night.

_"Take care of him,"_ she had said, smiling like a little girl.

But Mark hadn't taken care of him. Mark had lapsed, and now Roger was here, maybe dying. "I don't know who to be angrier with," he repeated.

"Him," Collins answered, without pausing a moment to think.

Mark let his head roll to glance at Collins. "How d'you figure?" he asked.

Collins continued to stare ahead, elbows resting on his knees. He had the look of a man who had cried long and hard, without the red-rimmed eyes left by tears, telling signs of an ignored need. "Because he's alive," he said with conviction. Roger _was_ alive. Roger _would be_ alive. Collins refused to think any other way.

"What if he--"

"He won't," Collins interrupted. "Do you think she was still using?"

"Why else would she have drugs?"

"Why does Roger keep his pocketknife?" Collins retorted. "Sometimes you need to be reminded of the things you are stronger than. Sometimes you need to know what you hate."

Mark blinked. He remembered Collins' patience with Roger after withdrawal, all but holding his hand through tough times. He remembered wondering why it was that Collins counseled when Roger looked lost and told him, at times, "I'm proud of you." It seemed a strange thing to say to a friend. "Good job," Mark thought, might be more apt, though still condescending. That more than anything had bothered him: the clear implication of a difference in standing between the two.

Now he asked, "Why were you… the way you were after Roger's withdrawal? You treated him like a child." It was almost an accusation.

"He _was_ a child. He had broken a behavioral pattern he'd followed since he was ten, he had no idea what to do."

"Roger wasn't using that early," Mark protested.

Collins nodded. "No, he wasn't. Aaand, yes, he was. An addict's an addict, regardless of his addiction." He remembered Roger's face, grinning, after he noticed Collins' glance at his arms. _"I don't do that anymore. I have something better. Something stronger, the happiest thing in the world_."

"So--"

Before Mark could finish his question, an intern poked her head into the room. "Hey," she said. "You're… you're with the man in 304, aren't you?" Mark and Collins found themselves sitting up straighter and nodding. The intern opened her mouth, but before she could speak a P.A. announcement summoned Dr. Samson to room 212, and she dashed off.

"There's news," Mark muttered, slumping down in his chair.

Collins stood up. "Come on," he said. One way or another, it was better to know.

To be continued...

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	3. Mark's Tirade

Disclaimer: RENT is the brainchild of Jonathan Larson and Iamnotworthy!

Roger was well known as 'not a morning person'. He had adopted a routine to accompany that reputation, beginning each morning with a long stint of sitting by the window nursing a cup of coffee, waiting for his body to come to speed with his boiling mind.

The first thing he was aware of was a steady beeping and light through knotted eyelashes.

"What is it?" Mark asked. His voice was harried, afraid and hopeful at once."What's going on? He doesn't look much different to me--"

"His eyes, man."

"What? Oh. Roger!"

Roger finished opening his eyes. He blinked. "What…"

"Roger!" Mark repeated. He grabbed Roger by the shoulders, decided this was not enough and pulled him into an awkward hug. "Roger, Roger…"

"I'm okay," Roger said. _Where am I? What's going on?_ The last thing he remembered was the slam of the door as Mark left the loft. Roger's brow furrowed. They were sitting on the floor, sorting through Mimi's belonging. He had not forgotten her death, but the sudden reminder sent a jolt through his chest. Ouch. "What--"

Mark pulled away from Roger. Briefly, Roger caught sight of an unusual glimmer in Mark's eyes. Then Mark turned to Collins. "He's all right," he said.

Collins nodded.

Mark turned back to Roger and smashed him across the face with an open palm. Roger swallowed his surprise and said nothing. The doctor said, "Jesus Christ!" and hurried around the bed to restrain Mark. In the moments it took him to round the bed, Mark got in a few good smacks, then grabbed Roger by the shoulders and began shaking him and sobbing.

Throughout all of this, Roger kept his mouth shut. He watched Collins, who stood back, allowing Mark his tirade. When Mark was led less than gently from the room, Collins followed. Roger saw Mark collapse against Collins in the corridor. He heard the sobs before the door to his room was closed.

"What did I do?" Roger asked aloud. He thought back to his most recent memory, sitting on the floor with Mark, sorting through Mimi's clothes and knick-knacks. _"I don't know if I can do this," Roger said suddenly, dropping the first shirt he had picked up. _

Mark immediately crossed the room and wrapped Roger in a hug.

"I'm not ready to let her go yet," Roger whined.

Mark nodded. "Okay. Okay. We don't need to, not yet. Let's… let's play Life. How about that?" He coaxed Roger out of the room and set up the board game. They played a few unenthusiastic rounds. It was an ironic game for the boys. Mark's real life had followed the board for only a few squares. Roger's had not followed at all.

After a while, Roger managed to laugh at Mark's weak jokes, the game grew rowdier, and they finished pleasantly. "You hungry?" Mark asked. "I'm starved. Let's go to the Life… " Roger shook his head. "You sure? All right, if you're sure. You don't mind if I go, do you, Rog?"

"No, go. I may…" A meaningful glance at the bedroom told Mark what Roger wanted.

"Okay."

Roger waited for Mark to leave before returning to the bedroom. He took a deep breath. He could do this. He could do this alone. It would be okay. He knelt amid her clothes. Maybe touching the cloth wasn't so wise. That held too many memories: her body, the lingering scent of her perfume, his hands against the fabric… Many of Mimi's things had once been Angel's. Roger could not touch them.

He reached for her jewelry box. It was a childish little thing, with faded pictures of ballerinas on pink backdrops. Roger remembered a similar box in his room when he was a child; of course, it was a box for his small toys, plastered with images of Winnie the Pooh.

He opened Mimi's box. A handful of bracelets covered the top shelf. What Roger knew he should have done was think, How will I use these? No, no, they should go to Goodwill._ He was not thinking that. He was not yet there. Instead, he thought of her. _

Beneath the bracelets, fitted neatly into compartments, were dangling earrings and pieces of Bazooka bubble gum. She had a stack of the comics, too. Roger's eyes closed against a film of tears. They had never talked about Bazooka Joe, and yet here he was, the same sugary comics Roger had pasted to a notebook in his mother's house.

Roger lifted the top shelf. And that was when he saw it, beneath her bottles of nail polish and tubs of lipstick: the neat glassine bags, full, inviting…

Lying in his hospital bed, Roger closed his eyes tightly. "I should've died," he whispered. "I should have died."

TBC


	4. More than a Coat

**Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson is the Supreme Creator of RENT and worthy of utmost respect. Characters not mine. Situation not mine. Nothing is mine.**

The cafeteria was dim and mostly empty. Vending machines hummed a gentle glow, offering sugar and caffeine in abundance. Circular tables sat unused; plastic chairs shimmered emptily. At one table, the room's sole habitant sat, leaning on his elbows absently.

Mark hunkered deeper into his coat. He remembered when he first clapped eyes on the thing: he was sixteen, a bit bigger then thanks to steady meals and a jock for a best friend. He had never learned how to refuse those puppy eyes and a sad, pleading whine: "Come on, Mark. Just for an hour, I promise, and I'll spot you…" And thanks to those days in the weight room, full of Zeppelin and Duran Duran, Mark Cohen actually had some muscle to him.

_The cool September wind blew dried leaves along the pavement. Overhead, a clear blue sky grinned coldly. Cindy gave a loud shiver and pulled on her sweater. Mrs. Cohen paused, sighed, and pulled a list from her pocket. She pursed her lips, then carefully drew a line through 'notebooks & writing supplies'. The fragmented family (somehow Mr. Cohen was constantly absent from these little trips) stood on the pavement outside a strip mall, back-to-school shopping._

_Mark tugged at his sweater. He _hated_ that sweater. Despite his mother's insistence that it was perfectly unisex, few boys at Mark's school wore V-necks, and none of them wore their sisters' hand-me-downs. But Mr. Cohen had been out of a job the previous year, and finances were tight. Now that he was working steadily, the family enjoyed less fights, more heat and food, and back-to-school shopping._

_"All right," Mrs. Cohen said. "New sneakers--"_

_It was then, as Mark glanced around the lot wishing he could be heading off to college like his sister (instead of back to high school for two more years), that he spotted the coat. It was hanging on a rack in the thrift shop, its dulled colors enticing him. "Can I get a coat?" Mark asked._

_Mrs. Cohen looked at him, and for a moment could not seem to remember who he was. The interruption threw her off balance: her quiet Mark usually barely spoke without prompting. "Um… sure, honey. If there's time."_

_"I want that one," Mark added, pointing._

_His mother frowned. "Used?" she asked, a tint of disgust to her voice._

_Mark nodded vigorously. "_That_'s the coat I want," he said. "I'll go buy it while Cindy gets her shoes, okay?" In Mark's mind there was no question as to whether the coat would fit. It would. He knew that--and he was right._

So many times people had called it "more a blanket than a coat". Now it was neither blanket nor coat, but mail. Small rings of steel protected Mark from harm. It could not protect him from the glare attacking his tired, aching eyes or the tightness in his head. It could not protect him from the betrayal in Roger's weakness. But it kept him safe from the cold and it kept him comfortable, physically at least.

"Hey."

Mark blinked. For a brief, brief moment, he had thought it was Roger speaking, Roger sitting opposite him, even the pale, too-thin Roger in a paper hospital dress, but Roger. The blink of an eye and turn of an ear told Mark that Roger's voice was higher, his frame more lithe and his skin lighter.

"Hey." Of course it wasn't Roger. Roger could not stand on his own two feet, literally.

"You okay?"

Mark shrugged. "No more than you," he said. Collins laughed. _Oh, right, _Mark thought. _That._ Rather than bother asking how Collins could laugh at a time like this, Mark nodded. "Do you think he'll be all right?" he asked.

Collins nodded. "I think so," he answered seriously. "He woke up, that's got to be good." Then, in a tone that Mark could not read and only half-hoped was a joke, "I'm still gonna kick his ass."

Mark bit his lip. He had not mentioned this to Collins before-- he had not mentioned it to anyone before, since it was Roger's secret and Roger tried to hide it. Mark had always known Roger's secrets. "Thomas?" It was code: this is important. This is serious.

"Hm?"

"Roger's been pretty depressed lately."

Mark gave a serious look, the last push Collins needed to knock the question off his theory. He shook his head. "I don't know, man. Roger's always been a pretty sick puppy, but I don't think he would go that far."

"You're very angry with him…" _Very angry for someone who doesn't think it was intentional._

"Yeah. He was stupid and selfish. Come on." Collins stood.

Mark blinked in confusion. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Home. Come on, let's get back to the loft. We can come back tomorrow."

Mark bit his lip. He wanted to stay. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be there. Maybe if Roger just knew he wasn't alone… But Mark's eyelids were heavy, and when Collins' hand guided him gently by the arm, Mark floated through his dreams out of the hospital.

Thomas Collins had stopped thinking about Roger. He forced himself, now that his friend was awake, to worry more on the matters that would follow them and affect the future-- namely, how were they to pay the bills?

TBC

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	5. The Therapist

Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

Roger opened his eyes. The room was bright white and assaulted his eyes. He moaned and turned away from it.

"Good afternoon, Roger."

The voice was calm, smooth and haughty, and totally unfamiliar.

_Huh?_ Roger blinked and looked around. A stranger sat in a chair near his bed. Roger tried to sit up, but his hands would not move. He tugged at them, but something restrained him. "What's wrong with my hands?" Roger asked. Panic welled in his chest. He needed his hands. He needed them. Suddenly a wave of cold revulsion washed over him. Was this some kind of punishment, for neglecting the guitar? Some karmic equation, solved?

Roger yanked and struggled but his hands would not move.

"You've been restrained," said the stranger. Roger really looked at him for the first time. He was probably in his thirties, Asian, clean-cut and smiling without emotion. Roger looked at him for a moment, then realized the meaning of the man's words. Restrained? No, that wasn't possible. Why would they do that to him?

…was he being arrested? Roger realized that it was wholly possible. He was in the hospital for a heroin overdose. The irony hurt. Years ago at any given time Roger had at least three hits on him. He was clean now—clean, and being arrested for heroin usage.

"One of the nurses reported hearing what she believed to be suicidal remarks, so we're keeping you as safe as possible."

Roger shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm not…" Talking to the ceiling was incredibly frustrating, but he had to look somewhere. "Okay, look, I did this to myself. Okay? But I'm not suicidal."

"The nurse reported hearing you remark that you should have died," the stranger prompted.

By now Roger understood what was happening. He knew a shrink's tones when he heard one. "Yes," he said. "I overdosed. I… you believe in God, Doc?" Roger asked. When no answer came, he continued, "Well, I don't know if I do. But I believe this: things sort themselves out. After everything I put my friends through in withdrawal, after every time I lost my temper with Mark when he tried to take care of me, here I am. Couldn't do it. So… karma, not suicide," Roger concluded. As much as he hated shrinks, babbling to them was easier than being evasive. Somehow they always found his weaknesses.

"Do you believe you deserve to die, Roger?" the shrink asked.

"Eventually, everyone dies," Roger retorted. The ceiling tiles had little dots. He began to count them.

"But do you believe you deserve to die _now_?" the shrink pressed.

Roger would have shrugged, if he could have. "I wrote the date of my death. Traded it for a few moments of pure happiness."

"Hm. You know, Roger, I think I'd like to meet with you again and if it seems helpful I can write you a prescription for something to help you feel better. Okay?"

Roger shook his head. "I don't have the money," he said.

"Well, your insurance should cover it."

_Insurance. Right._

_to be continued!_

_Reviews would be awesome_


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